Feel like DD has tried to sabotage me again and feel furious.

[MouthoftheSouth]

Help me process this a bit: I'm emotionally all over the place about this and don't trust my own reactions. Want to walk a line between being compassionate and understanding and not being a walkover. and don't know where I am on that line.

DD (12) had a rough year 7 last year and had to have counselling to deal with some difficult feelings. One of the manifestations of this was that she went through a period of asking teachers to call me during the working day and ask me to come and pick her up from school. (This happened maybe 3-4 times).

Obviously this wasn't workable (apart from anything else I work FT) and it caused a bit of a flashpoint with school, resulting in them asking me to get her some help because it was disruptive etc. She was processing some difficult things, such as the death of my father during COVID etc, so they were compassionate about it but she also had to learn that this isn't acceptable behaviour and work on her resilience etc.

She had counselling and things improved a lot, so by the third term of Year 7 it had stopped. She generally is in a much better place and her confidence and resilience has improved.

Yesterday she had the first of three days of a summer club which was a real hassle to get to. I started work later to drop her off and within an hour of leaving her there got a call from one of the supervisors to say she was feeling ill, so I had to schlepp back up there to pick her up again.

I suspected that she wasn't really ill but didn't want to be there and when I questioned her about this in detail this turned out to be true: she just didn't really enjoy it and wanted to come home (basically didn't like the feel of it). I was beyond furious and it took me a few hours to climb down. It made me so angry that she just presumed I could drop everything to pick her up just because she wasn't enjoying it.

She's very dependent on me in many ways for her age (I'm a lone parent and we are very close). I love her to distraction and I am and always will be there for her but am really trying to push her to be more independent and resilient, partly for her sake but also because I need freedom to work in order to support her (I usually work from home) so I can't constantly be asked to disrupt my working day.

I increasingly also feel quite stifled by her neediness. It's very hard for me to do anything on my own without her wanting to be involved or feeling she has a right to be involved in everything I do and I often feel I'm not allowed any space to be on my own or with my partner (who doesn't live with us) without her having to be involved. I feel at some level that she is sometimes quite manipulative and will invent problems if they give her an excuse to disrupt my working day. Obviously it's shit that I have to work this much to support her, but that's the reality of my life.

I felt after the counselling that we were making some progress but she seems to have backtracked.

Having to pick her up half way through the working day for no reason is a massive, massive hassle for me and got me into loads of trouble. She knows this full well and she knows how upset I am that she's ignored this because she was feeling a bit of mild discomfort. I'm trying not to make her feel awful and I made sure we didn't go to bed on an argument last night and had a nice evening with lots of hugs etc but I'm still absolutely seething inside and can't let it go.

Am I over-reacting? Should I be more hardline about this or am I being unkind? I'm at my wits' end with it and starting to honestly feel quite resentful.

I don’t think you are over reacting particularly. I think it’s ok to show your frustration for what happened. She needs to understand the impact of her actions. It’s not as if you were angry all night at her or you shouted and ranted.

If anything you may have been too accommodating in the past.

I presume she’s not going for the two other days?

Next time you book something, set out the expectations beforehand that you won’t be able to collect her and is she sure she wants to go - then don’t collect her. Explain that uncomfortable feelings are normal and she’ll need to ride them out. Sometimes this leads to settling down and sometimes it doesn’t, in which case things can be reevaluated, but the key thing is that you won’t be able to collect her.

@MouthoftheSouth maybe try a practical approach? ask her what is she planning on doing instead given that you cannot keep picking her up and you wont be there to spend time with her because you're working.

@Blinkingbonkers its easier for an adult then a child in this scenario. OPs daughter couldn't just leave the same way an adult would

I've done more or less that this morning.

I’m not sure this is helpful or not, I have an adult DD and this has been our relationship for her whole life. She has an anxious attachment style and anxiety disorder with ADHD so does rely on me for basically, everything.

She is independent in reality but has struggled to get there and doesn’t really want to be independent as this would mean detaching from me. I seem to make her feel equally insecure and secure all at the same time, often I make mistakes, get mad, feel frustrated and trapped, I’ve felt resentful, I’ve felt stressed, pity, shame, love, all the emotions. It’s so complex and although there is strong love underneath nothing I do will ever really help her or fix this because it’s who she is and how she feels. I’ve tried therapy for her but she was resistant to it, so I’ve had my own therapy.

I’ve come to a place of acceptance that yes, she has made my life harder and yes, I have felt resentful, but I actually love her so much I need to not focus on those things anymore and it’s not her fault. I blame myself for this situation, I feel so responsible for something somewhere going wrong so I feel guilt. I’ve also played into this and made mistakes so perhaps I didn’t do the right things or maybe I did and they didn’t work and never would have. I don’t know.

I just moved to a place of more peace and she responded to this. I didn’t realise how enmeshed our moods are together so me being the adult parent had to take charge. I had to set the tone. I had to set an example. I had to be consistent not up and down and angry then loving as this was causing a push pull effect. This has worked well, I’ve boosted her confidence and she is pulling on me less. She feels more stable and less likely to try to pull me back with an intense drama. I’ve worked on how to use calm language when she is worked up and help her learn how to figure things out. So if she is somewhere and instantly just wants to come back, I talk her through it on text message or FaceTime. She is an adult and will still visit her dad and then instantly want to come home, so I can soothe her and she knows I am thinking of her but I am not reacting to her panic or stress. Can your DD have a phone? Would this help?

Hi OP,

That sounds really tough! I am in an almost identical situation. My DD is 9 & has separation anxiety from me following a bereavement a few years ago. It holds her back so much & she has pretended to be ill to get out of doing things previously but we are turning a corner, although I can't ever begin to imagine leaving her at home whilst I work I can only hope in time she becomes a bit more independent. She is a lovely girl, much like your DD probably but I do feel stifled by her. She wants to be with me 24/7 & I can't go anywhere without her messaging me constantly. It is draining & when it is affecting your income, even worse. My employer is understanding too but they were getting fed up when I had to collect her from school 3 weeks on a row. It's normal to be annoyed by it! I was recommended a book on here called starving your anxiety gremlin which has really helped incase you want to look into that. I don't think they can help it, they want us all the time to feel safe but it's not healthy for either party.

Might be worth having a word with the manager too, that's not okay. Part of their job is managing situations like this. They could have gently encouraged her to stay the rest of the day instead of snapping their fingers for you because she looked sad. Guarantee they would not have done that to a working dad.

I think communication is key. My daughter is 13, and she too lost a grandparent during the pandemic (to cancer).
I check in with my daughter a lot, ask her how she's feeling and is there anything on her mind she wants to talk about (school, friendships etc).
Sometimes you really need to empower them though, and encourage them to find ways of dealing with their emotions themselves. And thats tough, the temptation to take the weight for them is always there!
In terms of feigning illness, my daughter knows if she is off school ill its a quiet day resting in bed with no phone or laptop - she'd be bored stiff, thus shes never feigned illness!
Don't be hard on yourself @MouthoftheSouth because its hard being a lone parent working FT (I have the utmost respect for lone parents). Its clear you love your daughter, and are doing your best by her 😊

what did she say to this?

Honestly, it's ok. You got frustrated - justifiably. She now needs to learn that actions have consequences and in a grand scheme of things having to suck up being bored / slightly uncomfortable for few hours is not that great of a consequence to suffer through.

Now she needs to figure out what other things she is planning on doing, and you need to take a step back. She is not getting hurt by being uncomfortable and learning to deal with these situations is working in her favour.

Just think back to when toddlers cry because we make them do something that is for their own good. They get upset because they have not learned yet why they cannot eat trash out of the trashcan.

when kids get older they learn more complex social rules, but they need to learn them the same way they did learn about food poisoning from eating rotten carrot :)

It is hard to teach resilience. I'm not sure what my parents did for me but I am a very resilient person. I remember going to holiday clubs and wanting to cry I hated it so much but toughed it out and wouldn't dream of getting me mum to come get me. We are very close by the way and I know my parents would do anything for me (within reason!)

However on the flip side, I'm quite emotionally disengaged and often put my own needs and thoughts to the bottom of the pile and lack confidence. Probably as a result of being so 'resilient' as a child.

So I have no idea how to resolve this but wanted to say that it's not necessarily 'wrong' to be lacking in resilience. She does have to start understand your needs too though.

OP, sounds to me like you are a wonderful parent, and not even vaguely in need of therapy for anything on this thread, anyway!. Some of the criticisms on here are bonkers.

I don't think going on about consequences around your job more will help... but I do think it's worth listening and talking through those moments when she ends up calling you, as partners.... what was happening? What was she feeling? When did it become a decision to call you? What might have happened if she hadn't called... what could she have done or told herself that might have helped her? What does she think she could do next time? What could you do to help? (Eg would it help if she knew you would call at lunch? Or if there is an item of shared meaning, she has with her, which she knows has your love in it.... these are just random ideas- what are HER ideas? It could help if she takes some pride and ownership in thinking through a different way to try to do things. And this builds are skills.

I also love the idea another poster had with her son of setting 'three days a year when you can pull the alarm bell' see what she thinks of that and ask her what she thinks the target should be.... this does a couple of things - 1. it lowers anxiety because she KNOWS there is an escape route if she really needs it. (A lot of anxiety is about what if....what if... catastrophizing, rather than the badness of the live situation.... it's trying to get out of something that might get worse). 2. It encourages her to assess 'how bad is this really?' before going for the emergency cord of calling for you 3. It gives them pride/focus in meeting or beating the target.

Also maybe start talking about anxiety-producing events in advance.... how do you think you might feel? What can you do to help yourself? And perhaps even establish a reward waiting if she gets through the day.

There are some good books out there that help children think through their thought and feeling processes at these moments that might help.

I also wouldn't challenge her honesty/ think in terms of manipulation... I would rather frame it as 'when you say you are feeling Ill, you are clearly feeling bad in SOME way... sometimes we mix up whether it's our bodies or our feelings... I care about both...., so let's have a chat to try to untangle what's going on...'

Good luck!

Totally disagree with this PP and agree with OP on this comment, I don’t believe you are lacking in empathy, if anything I can’t believe you managed to control how peed off you were having to leave work for two hours to collect your DD. I can totally empathise with how difficult it is to be the default parent that always has to leave work.

I think anyone of us where the roof over their head is literally dependent upon whether or not we can keep our job 100% understands your frustration.

I would definitely keep on with the consequences to this behaviour being you need to catch up with work therefore have less time, less treats etc. Maybe you need to explore counselling again for your DD, but honestly I think posters talking about you needing counselling for expressing a healthy emotion (anger is healthy, as long as it isn’t expressed in a way to hurt others) and I honestly don’t see why you wouldn’t be angry and frustrated.

OP you are doing a great job - I recommend again:

https://www.ahaparenting.com

Dr Laura is American so much more tune to solo working parents. You have the connection, now it's about working through the limits so she can take responsibility for herself.

Some of these posts are a bit harsh. You sound like a supportive Mum. Yes she has lost a Grandparent, but you have also lost a dad. You are are expected to suffer all the consequences and stress of her actions and protect her from them? No she absolutely needs to learn there are consequences to her actions. If you lost your job what would happen then?

I would be clear to her that picking her up is not an option, and stand by that. At the moment she is getting what she wants, and she is spending the evening getting loads of hugs?? why would she change her behaviour you are suffering consequences not her.

Obviously stay supportive, but it is ok for her to feel some hard ship, protecting her from everything will not help her learn resilience. Arrange some further counselling, perhaps next time time she needs something apologise and say you cant afford it this month, you have taken a hit to your pay.

I'm a little surprised at this thread - or I must be a very strict bitch because at 12 she is old enough to understand you need to work to keep a roof over her head and food on the table - so I wouldn't be as accommodating as you OP and I would be as frustrated.

That's lot to say she may not need some additional support but the running and picking up isn't helpful I feel. I know DSsis had this with DN and school in end had to get very firm with her between DN and younger child ill from nursery she really was painfully very close to losing her job - and it's had no ill effects.

I had same expectation at 12 as 14/15 or even exist now at 17 in that they go school/college when well and I think it worked because they don't like there peers truant at a drop of a hat.

The wider neediness I would tolerate as expect she will with reassurance grow out of it- and I would try and find the issue with the holiday group - it could be too young as not many 12 here are not at them or too sporty - that's most of ones here - but if she needs to go so you can work that frankly then she needs to go and she is old enough to have that explained to her and to work with you to find anyways to make it more palatable to her.

@KT1995 @LuckySantangelo35

"I was beyond furious and it took me a few hours to climb down."

I had same expectation at 12 as 14/15 or even exist now at 17 in that they go school/college when well and I think it worked because they don't like there peers truant at a drop of a hat

l had this expectation too. Then my ASD Dd became an EBSA. Despite wanting to be educated and go to school, she just couldn’t. Sometimes expectations mean nothing.

"I was beyond furious and it took me a few hours to climb down."

You think DD wasn't very aware of this level and duration of anger?

@GardeningIdiot

"I was beyond furious and it took me a few hours to climb down."

You think DD wasn't very aware of this level and duration of anger?

Of course, but beyond moderating my anger and remaining calm and kind with her I'm not sure what you expect me to have done about this?

The whole point of this thread is for me to let off steam and seek comments on my emotional response. I obviously haven't directly communicated any of this to my DD but I'm human and I have the right to discuss how this made me feel.

As I've said before I'm quite prepared to take criticism on the chin if its constructive but I think you're just being unkind for the sake of it.

My mum was like you, I just needed reassurance and space to develop resilience with her as a safety net but she subtly let me know how irritating I was and how low down her priorities I sat. I am now no contact and my children have grown into confident, independent individuals knowing their family are there when they need them.

Her actions have consequences, it sounds like despite the fact

"I was beyond furious and it took me a few hours to climb down."

OP was still supportive and understanding, not abusive.

Why isn't her daughter allowed to know she is furious?

Well that's nice for you. Not sure how that helps someone who has to work to provide for their child though?

I used to do this at school when I was being bullied by a group of girls in the year above. Then later I did it at sixth form but it wasn’t as disruptive by then as I could find my own way home! For me, it was anxiety- and subsequently [mild depression]-related. Definitely a social thing. I wasn’t in a really dark place but nobody really knew what was going on and I just didn’t want to be in that place. My mum still kicks herself about the bullying (unnecessarily imo!) as she feels she should’ve picked up on it.

Personally I think you do need to put your foot down and push resilience but in as supportive and non-angry a way as possible. Definitely keep the counselling up but it sounds like your girl is struggling and it’s a tough age bless her. All the best OP.

Unkind? I'm pointing out that your response seems more out of place than that of a 12 yo who has recently lost her dad struggling and not meeting your expectations.

Of course you can vent. But what you have said immediately makes me concerned for your DD.

Your overwhelming anger will affect her, whether you express it directly or not.

I have read the whole thread and quite honestly found some of the responses just jaw dropping. No wonder so many of our young adults have no resilience when we tip toe around them like this and constantly look for reasons why etc. She is 12 for goodness sake. she is clearly bright and able to understand that mum is the only parent and therefore the whole burden of parenting falls upon one person. Honestly I would stop this pussyfooting around and be really clear. She wanted to go to the activity. she wanted it paid for and she wanted to be taken there and back. she didnt give it anywhere near enough time to see if she liked it or not. all future booked and paid for activities will be looked at through the lens of what happened with this one. At the moment I think there is stress and anxiety involved but if this carries on then this child could become very manipulative. Nip it in the bud OP. you will be doing her a favour in the long run.